Daddy's Toy-Box (A Daddy's Best Friend Romance) Read online

  “This coffee tastes burnt,” they’d always say loudly, rolling their eyes and tapping their perfectly-manicured nails against the counter while I tried to serve fifteen other customers.

  They’d probably look angry if their overly-Botoxed foreheads allowed for it, but their icy annoyance was conveyed in their eyes all the same as they demanded my attention above all others despite their complete inability to tip me or any other wait-staff. Ever. Luckily, our other customers usually tipped us decently during the course of the day, so all in all, working here wasn’t a bad gig.

  Until today.

  “I’m sorry, but my niece Amy really needs an afternoon job,” my boss Nina was saying over my shoulder as I helped the barista clean up a milk spill.

  I was barely concentrating on what she was saying, because she’d decided to approach me during the dreaded afternoon rush, and a rich soccer mom was currently glaring daggers at me as she waited for her skinny latte.

  “Here you go, ma’am,” I said, finally handing it to her. “Sorry, Nina, what were you saying?”

  I turned to her, and she sighed. “I was saying I have to cut your hours back. Way back.”

  My eyebrows shot up, and my pulse began to race. “Really? But…I barely work enough to cover my rent as it is,” I said quietly, before nervously chewing on my lower lip.

  “I’m sorry, but Amy is family. And now that you’re eighteen…well, you know how it is.”

  She was right. I knew exactly how it was. In our state, base wages were meant to go way up once a person hit the age of eighteen, seeing as the person was now legally an adult. I’d seen enough of my friends from high school get fired from their after-school jobs the minute they turned eighteen to know what was what.

  I hadn’t expected it from Nina, though. I’d been a good employee for her in the two years I’d worked here before and after school, sometimes even into the night when she kept the café open late, and I’d never complained or given her trouble. Not once. Even when she took half my tips at the end of each day, claiming that was ‘the law’.

  “How many hours can you still give me?” I asked timidly, not wanting to stir the pot.

  That was me, the quiet little mouse. No matter how unfair something was, no matter how much I was getting screwed over, I was always too polite to stand up for myself and demand justice and better treatment.

  “I can give you five hours on Mondays and Tuesdays, from nine to two.”

  I did some quick mental calculations. Even with a good amount of tips—which was never a guarantee, especially in the upcoming slow season—there was no way I could pay my rent and afford my bills, let alone food, on just ten hours of work a week. No way at all. The twenty hours I was currently working per week gave me barely enough for me to survive on, for god’s sake, especially in a place like this, where everything was twice as expensive as any other major city.

  “Are you sure you can’t give me just a few more hours? My rent just went up,” I said, my voice trembling. Don’t cry, I told myself. Don’t cry. But the tears were gathering in the corners of my eyes anyway.

  Nina shrugged. “Sorry, no. You can just move somewhere smaller, right?”

  I looked down at my feet. The answer to her question was no. There wasn’t much around the city that was smaller and cheaper than my current shoebox apartment, and even if there was, it was unlikely I’d get it anyway, given my tender age. It had been difficult enough to score my current apartment back when I was still seventeen—I had help from my friend’s parents—so the chances of lightning striking twice and me being lucky enough to find another place with barely any notice was somewhere around zero.

  I’d been living on my own for six months now, ever since I had to leave my friend Emma’s house. Mom died nearly three years ago, and since my abusive petty criminal of a father had taken off on us when I was just a kid and never returned—which was probably for the best, given what he was like—I had no other family members around to help out. Emma’s parents had taken pity on me and let me stay with them for a while, but they’d made it clear it was temporary—they didn’t have much money and couldn’t afford to keep me forever. And so I’d found the job at Boci, given them as much as I could whilst squirrelling away some in a little nest egg of my own, and six months ago I’d moved into my tiny apartment on Blaine Street, paid for all by myself.

  I’d been so proud of that; been so proud of the fact that I was taking care of myself. But now my old demons were slinking back in. A sense of creeping dread had followed me around all my life, making me constantly worry that I was about to lose it all at any given moment, and right now, I really was about to lose it all. There was no white knight riding in on a horse to scoop me up and save me from the dragon; no big, strong man coming to chase away the demons. It was just me.

  “Look, I do feel bad about this, so I spoke to a friend of mine at an agency,” Nina said, breaking the tense silence.

  I looked up, choking back the tears. “What agency?”

  “She works at a place called Melinda May. It’s for nannies. You know, glorified babysitters. I figured you’d be good at that, seeing as you’re gonna be studying teaching when college starts for you. So I got you an interview.”

  My eyes widened. “You did?”

  “Yeah. Twelve o’clock on Friday next week. The office is in Claremont. You can Google the address. Dress nice and don’t be late, or you’ll make me look bad.”

  “Okay. Thank you,” I said, the tears brimming over now.

  I was glad I’d remained polite and mouse-like when Nina initially told me that I was losing my hours, because if I’d gotten angry and made a scene about it, she might not have told me about the interview she’d apparently arranged for me.

  “Go home. You look terrible when you cry,” she said, awkwardly patting me on the shoulder. Gee, thanks. “Oh, and you’ll need to get some stuff together for the interview. They need a police clearance to make sure you’re hirable for a job involving kids.”

  I nodded, slipping my apron off. “I guess I’ll start organizing that right away.”

  “Good luck,” she said. “Oh, and before you go…”

  She held out her hand, and I suppressed the urge to cry again as I reached into my pocket and peeled off several bills from the stash I had in there. Of course. Even after she’d upended my life, she still needed her half of my tips.

  Still, I suppose she’d gone out of her way to get me this nanny interview. She wasn’t completely Satan.

  Once I was out of the café, I turned and looked at it, letting a small sigh escape my lips as I stared at the moms with their babies in two thousand dollar Bugaboo strollers which sat idling by their tables. For a moment, I dearly wished I was one of those women. All they seemingly had to worry about was scheduling dermatology appointments and finding a decent nail technician while their perfect angelic babies cooed nearby. They didn’t have to worry where their next meal came from, or how they’d pay the water bill. Their rich husbands paid for everything, taking care of them the same way their rich daddies likely had when they were born into their lives of privilege.

  I knew I sounded bitter. I knew I was making assumptions that could very well be false. I knew I was just a jealous little girl. But still, beyond anything else, I longed to be like them. I longed for someone to take care of me the same way these women were taken care of.

  But that wasn’t going to happen for me. I was all on my own, and I had to take care of myself, because no one else was going to do it for me. And so I turned around, fighting back tears all over again, and I stepped out into the street.

  Alone.

  Chapter Two

  Vanessa

  My hands shook as I stepped into the multi-storied building in Claremont. Melinda May’s agency was on the fourth floor, and while I rode the elevator, I looked at the mirrored wall and smoothed my wavy strawberry blonde hair down, trying to ignore my trembling fingers.

  The elevator pinged, and I walked out and tow
ard the receptionist’s desk, my legs somehow carrying me even though I was sure they’d collapse under me at any moment. When the receptionist spotted me, she gave me a polite smile and raised a questioning brow. “Are you Vanessa Ryan?” she asked.

  I nodded. “Yes,” I said timidly. “I have an interview at twelve.”

  “Ms. May will see you soon. Just take a seat over there.”

  She waved toward some chairs on the far side of the small room, and I smiled weakly and did as she said. As I sat down, I smoothed my skirt and did up another button on my blouse just to be safe. They were the nicest clothes I owned; hand-me-downs from Emma. Hopefully they’d be enough to convince the agency that I was a trustworthy girl from a good background. It was unbelievable how much people judged you from your appearance alone.

  As I waited, I wondered if I was even halfway qualified for a job like this. Or would Melinda simply laugh in my face when she saw my résumé? The only real job I’d ever had was at Boci. I did have some experience with kids, though—Emma had three younger brothers and sisters, one of them a baby, and I’d helped out a lot with them in the time I’d lived at her house. It was the least I could do.

  My phone buzzed in my purse, and I leaned down and looked at the screen. It was a private number calling me, so I ignored it and shut my phone off. I’d been getting odd prank calls from a private number a lot recently. Whenever I answered, the person on the other end of the line never said anything. Just silence and breathing.

  I sat back up straight and grabbed a magazine from a nearby coffee table to read while I waited. It was just a silly celebrity gossip rag; the perfect distraction. Idly flipping to halfway through, I saw an article about a man named Jacob Baldwin, and I stared at the main photo of him, fascinated. He was a local multi-millionaire—he owned a small investment bank and also our city’s football team, I think—and while I’d heard of him in the past, I never knew he was so….hot.

  He was in his mid-thirties at least, if not a bit older, and he definitely wasn’t the kind of guy my friends would go for. They all went for young meat-heads with football scholarships, and Jacob Baldwin was anything but. He looked like a perfectly clean-cut gentleman with a serious nature, aside from the very vague spark of mischief in his blue-green eyes (although I suppose that could just be Photoshop), and his dark hair and chiseled features made my heart skip a beat. I’d never been one of those boy-crazy girls—that was probably why I’d still never had a boyfriend at this point in my life—but this man made me want to conjure up all sorts of wild fantasies in the privacy of my mind. He wasn’t a boy like the guys my friends went for.

  He was a man.

  He looked like the sort of guy who took charge and took care of things. The sort of man who could make anything happen. I suppose it’s easy to make things happen when you have millions of dollars at your disposal, though.

  “Ms. Ryan?”

  I glanced up to see a tall, statuesque redheaded woman standing near the reception desk, and I swallowed hard. Compared to my petite frame, she was a giant, and it was intimidating as hell. I nodded and stood up, ignoring my shaking legs and hoping they wouldn’t buckle under me as I approached the woman.

  “I’m Melinda May. Would you like to follow me?” she said.

  She led me into an office with a view that overlooked the park outside. Birds chirped just outside the window, and I smiled, imagining them all flying in and helping me out like they always did on Disney movies.

  “Nice view, isn’t it?” Melinda asked, gesturing for me to sit.

  “Yes, it’s lovely,” I replied quietly, wishing for a view of my own one day.

  “Anyway, let’s get started,” she said, briskly tapping her pen against a file. “You have your résumé and police clearance papers with you?”

  “Yes.”

  It hadn’t been easy to get the police check on such short notice—there was a lot of paperwork and red tape involved—but I’d managed somehow, and I’d even borrowed my neighbor’s computer and printer so I could whip up a fancy new résumé.

  After glancing over it, Melinda asked me a lot of general questions about myself. I answered as best I could, hoping I came across as mature despite my age.

  “Do you have a car?” she asked about ten minutes into the interview.

  I nodded. When my mother passed, I inherited her car—it was one of the few things in the world that she actually owned. It was just a beat-up old thing, but it did the job of getting me from A to B.

  “Good,” Melinda said. “It’s important to have your own transportation in a line of work like this. In case there’s an emergency with one of the kids, for example.”

  My heart leapt. Did this mean there was a chance that a position at the agency was actually mine? It certainly sounded like it. But then came the question I’d been dreading.

  “Do you have a lot of experience with kids? Brothers and sisters, or work experience during high school?”

  I hesitated. I didn’t want to lie; it didn’t seem right, even though I knew a lot of people padded their work histories and talked themselves up in interviews.

  “Not exactly a lot,” I admitted quietly. “I lived with my best friend and her parents for two years recently, though, and they had three young children there. One was eight, another was four, and the third was a baby. I helped out a lot in return for them letting me stay with them.”

  “So you have experience with a wide variety of ages. That’s good,” Melinda replied with a satisfied nod. “And thanks for your honesty. It’s rare these days; you wouldn’t believe some of the lies I hear.”

  I breathed a quiet sigh of relief.

  “I’ll be honest with you, Vanessa,” Melinda continued. “Several of our nannies have just left us—apparently there’s some new au pair program in France that they all wanted to try out—so we’re currently a bit shorthanded. If you accept the job, we’ll be throwing you in the deep end. At least three families are in need of a new nanny right now. You said you were looking for part-time hours?”

  “Yes. I’ll be starting college soon, so I need to work around that.”

  “That’s fine. Most of the positions are part-time hours, anyway—they usually want someone to get their kids ready in the morning and drop them off at school, then pick up and babysit at the end of the school day. I’m sure you could fit that around your classes.”

  I nodded, my confidence growing. “Yes, I think I definitely could.”

  “So can I offer you a position with our agency? I think Nina was right about you. You seem like a wonderful fit.”

  My heart began to race again, but this time out of delight and anticipation. “Yes. Thank you. I’m really excited,” I replied.

  Melinda smiled. “Like I said, I’ll be throwing you in the deep end. I’ll need to send you out today to meet a potential family and see how you get on with them. How does two o’clock suit you?”

  I gulped. Jeez, she really was throwing me in the deep end. That was only an hour and a half from now.

  “Um. That should be fine,” I said. It wasn’t like I had any hours to work at Boci today, anyway.

  “Great.” Melinda was silent for a few seconds, and then she pulled out a file from her desk drawer. “One thing Nina told me about you was that you’re extremely trustworthy and dedicated. Discreet, too.”

  If by discreet Nina meant ‘never reported her to the Fair Work Commission’ for taking my tips, then sure, I was discreet.

  “Um. Yes, I pride myself on being reliable and trustworthy,” I squeaked out, unsure where this was going.

  “The client I want to send you to interview with today will require you to sign an NDA if you mesh well with the child and accept the nanny position.”

  “An NDA?” I arched a brow.

  “A non-disclosure agreement. It legally prevents you from speaking about your position to anyone.”

  “Oh. I see.”

  I wondered who the client was. Maybe the parents were famous actors. I was quit
e certain Angelina Jolie didn’t have a residence in our city, but still…I could always dream.

  “He’ll explain it all to you when you go to see him for an interview,” she said. “I can’t say more than that right now.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  I guess it was a single father, then.

  “Try to make a good impression. This is one of our most prominent clients, and we’ve had trouble securing nannies for him before. He can be…difficult to get along with sometimes.”

  “I’ll do my best. Thank you so much for the opportunity.”

  This was all very mysterious. Although, I supposed it added another element of excitement to my dreary day; one I hadn’t been expecting. I hadn’t even expected to score a position at Melinda May, let alone be sent out almost immediately to a strange and secretive client.

  Just over an hour later, I was cruising down the highway, heading toward the client for my interview to see if I fit in with the family. If they liked me, Melinda said I would likely have to start immediately, and that was great. The sooner the better, really. I needed money like most other people needed oxygen, because the bills piling up on my kitchen counter had to be paid somehow, and soon.

  My GPS directed me to make a right turn, and my eyes widened as the houses grew bigger and more imposing with each mile I drove. I knew this area was a wealthy neighborhood, but I’d never actually been here before and seen just how prestigious it was. I’d never had any reason to come here before now.

  Up ahead on the street I was currently on, several trucks were parked, and orange cones marked out the road as unavailable while work was being done. This was the only way through to the gated neighborhood where I was headed, so I pulled over on the curb, and a man trudged over to my window.

  “Sorry, miss. The power lines that run under the road have an issue. We’re almost done, though. Twenty minutes or so and you’ll be able to go through.”